Academic literature on the topic 'Maniapoto people'

AbstractLegislation emerging from Treaty of Waitangi settlements provide Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, with new opportunities to destabilize and decolonize the colonial knowledge, processes and practices that contribute towards negative material and metaphysical impacts on their rohe [traditional lands and waters]. In this article we focus our attention on the Nga Wai o Maniapoto (Waipa River) Act 2012 and the Deed of Settlement signed between the Crown (the New Zealand government) and Ngāti Maniapoto (the tribal group with ancestral authority over the Waipā River) as an example of how the law in Aotearoa New Zealand is increasingly stretched beyond settler-colonial confines to embrace legal and ontological pluralism. We illustrate how this Act serves as the foundation upon which Ngāti Maniapoto are seeking to restore, manage, and enhance the health of their river. Such legislation, we argue, provides a far higher degree of recognition of Māori rights and interests both as an outcome of the settlement process and by strengthening provisions under the Resource Management Act 1991 regarding the role of Māori in resource management. We conclude by suggesting that co-governance and co-management arrangements hold great potential for transforming river management by recognizing and accommodating ontological and epistemological pluralism, which moves Aotearoa New Zealand closer to achieving sustainable and just river futures for all.

Discourse surrounding the Treaty of Waitangi has shifted the Treaty's status from a "simple nullity" to the foundational document of this country. A very specific dimension of Treaty discourse, Maori-to-Maori disputes in the context of Treaty claim settlement, is explored – particularly mediation. The author argues that mediation is far from a cure-all, and should not be used indiscriminately in Maori disputes. Two examples are explored. The Allocation of Commercial Fisheries Settlement presented mediation as a mandatory dispute resolution procedure, undermining the process altogether. The Ngati Maniapoto, Ngati Tama and Crown mediation process failed to provide a level playing field for all parties involved, resulting in continuous alienation. The author concludes that dispute resolution is just one facet of the Treaty discourse, and conversations between institutions, experts, and law-makers should continue regarding how to redefine Treaty principles in a way that does not rip people apart.

This article explores and evaluates, from an iwi/Māori perspective, the presence of James Cowan in the early twentieth-century collection and recording of Ngāti Maniapoto’s tribal knowledge, past narratives and Pākehā encounter history on the “frontier” border around the Pūniu River. This includes the extent to which Cowan empathised, identified with, and participated in the lives of the Māori people he studied, and recognised them as subjects and not objects of their history. The article argues that Cowan, the early oral historian who connected “places, people and memories” and captured Maniapoto voices speaking in their cultural present, has enriched our shared understanding of the tribe’s past and traditions. The author, a Ngāti Maniapoto half-caste from Kihikihi, illustrates Cowan’s contribution by locating his own personal journey of historical curiosity about his Maniapoto-Pākehā identity in the life and works of James Cowan.

AbstractAround the world, many societies are trying to create and apply apparatuses that recognise Indigenous interests in freshwater systems. Such policies and strategies often acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ rights and values they attached to specific waterways, and take the form of new legal agreements which are directed at reconciling diverse worldviews, values, and ways of life within particular environments. In this chapter we review one such arrangement: the co-governance arrangements between the Māori iwi (tribe) Ngāti Maniapoto and the New Zealand (Government) to co-govern and co-manage the Waipā River. We analysis where the new governance arrangements are enabling Ngāti Maniapoto to achieve environmental justice and find substantive faults most notably distributive inequities, lack of participatory parity, and inadequate recognition of Māori governance approaches.

AbstractIn this concluding chapter, we bring together our earlier analyses of the historical and contemporary waterscapes of the Waipā River (Aotearoa New Zealand) to consider the theory and practice of Indigenous environmental justice. In this chapter, we return to review three key dimensions of environmental justice: distributive, procedural, and recognition. We summarise the efforts of one Māori tribal group (Ngāti Maniapoto) to challenge the knowledge and authority claims of the settler-colonial-state and draw attention to the pluralistic dimensions of Indigenous environmental (in)justice. Furthermore, we highlight that since settler colonialism is not a historic moment but still a ongoing reality for Indigneous peoples living settler societies it is critically important to critically evaluate theorising about and environmental justice movements through a decolonising praxis.

Ka matakitaki iho au ki te riu o Waikato Ano nei hei kapo kau ake maaku Ki te kapu o taku ringa, The words above are from the poem Māori King Tawhiao wrote expressing his love for his homelands of the Waikato and the region known today as the King Country. The words translate to: “I look down on the valley of Waikato, As though to hold it in the hollow of my hand.” Now imagine a large-scale photograph depicting a close-up frame of cupped hands trying to hold something carefully. The words above inform Professor Tom Roa and Dr. Rodrigo Hill’s current research project titled Te Nehenehenui - The Ancient Enduring Beauty in the Great Forest of the King Country. With this project still in its early stages the research team will present past collaborations which they will show leads into new ideas and discussions about photography, wānanga, and place representation. They focus on Māori King Tawhiao’s finding refuge in Te Nehenehenui, later called the King Country in his honour. He led many of his Waikato people into this refuge as a result of the British Invasion and confiscation of their Waikato lands in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The love of and for those lands prompted him to compose his ‘maioha’ - this poem painting a word-picture of these spaces which their photography humbly aims to portray. The project advances the use of wānanga (forums and meetings through which knowledge is discussed and passed on) and other reflective practices, engaging with mana whenua and providing a thread which will guide the construction of the photographic images. The name Te Nehenhenui was conceptualised by Polynesian ancestors who travelled from Tahiti and were impressed with the beauty of the land and the vast verdant forests of the King Country territories in the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. The origins of the name and further relevant historical accounts have been introduced and discussed by Professor Tom Roa (Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Hinewai), Shane Te Ruki (Ngāti Unu, Ngāti Kahu) and Doug Ruki (Ngāti Te Puta I Te Muri, Ngāti Te Kanawa, Ngāti Peehi) in the TVNZ Waka Huia documentary series. The documentary provides a compelling account of the origins of the name Te Nehenehenui, thus informing this project’s core ideas and objectives. The research fuses wānanga, that is Mātauranga Māori, and photographic research approaches in novel ways. It highlights the importance of local Waikato-Maniapoto cosmological narratives and Māori understandings of place in their intersecting with the Western discipline of photography. This practice-led research focuses on photography and offers innovative forms of critical analysis and academic argumentation by constructing, curating, and presenting the photographic work as a public gallery exhibition. For this edition of the LINK Conference, the research team will present early collaborations and current research developments exploring place-making and wānanga as both methodology and photography practice.